1.On Friday night I stopped off at the Strand Bookshop
on the way to going to a lecture
by Peter Gay, an historian
well known for his pristine,
excellently written biography of Freud. In
addition to finding an inexpensive hardbound copy
of one of the few books by
Phillip K. Dick that I've never completely read many times,
*The Man In the High Castle*- its premise is
that Germany won the Second World War- how apropos
for 2004 Amerika- I found a copy of Tony Tost's *Invisible
Bride*, which happens to be winner of the 2003 Walt Whitman
Award, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. I love
finding books of poetry by bloggers, and I'm enjoying this
book. First of all, it's prose poetry, which I have a bias
towards, and I liked this part a lot:

"Did you know that Rick James and Neil Young played together
in a band called The Mynah Birds? Did you know that Thomas
Jefferson was once given a 1, 235 hunk of cheese, giving us
the term "the big cheese"? That sleep walkers are not allowed
in the armed services because of the threat they pose when they
have access to dangerous equipment and are unaware of what
they are doing? I have razors hidden through my room, so I'm
curious about what will happen when all the somnabulists get in
there."

2. Then I went to the New School to hear a talk given by Peter Gay,
historian, Emeritus Professor at Yale,
about a book he is writing on modernism
(in his view modernists got that way because
they liked to break rules and were obsessed
with subjectivity--interesting--and modernism
still exists, though hardly so, particularly in architecture,
such as the Bilbao Guggenheim- which he says is a
must-see; also, FLW once said that his
New York Guggenheim was the only museum
ever built that made sense.)

I wished I could have brought along my copy of Prof. Gay's
famous biography of Freud, which I love, but most of my
books are as yet unpacked, unbelievably,
because I have so many and have still do not
have my bookshelves built since I moved. They
were selling some other books by Peter Gay
just before the lecture so
I bought a very interesting one titled
*Freud for Historians*. Professor Gay
is one of very few historians who are fascinated by Freud. He has
also written many books about literary history, particularly the
fin-de-siecle, which has interested me for a long time. After the
lecture I asked him to sign my book and he graciously did so (the
line was long, the lecture was packed with at least
150 or more people, mostly psychoanalysts,
since the lecture was sponsored by a psychoanalytic institute.)
After asking him if he liked Shattuck's book *The Banquet Years*
(he did, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it-
though not Shattuck's other books)- I asked him quickly
if he intended to write about Schwitters, Arp and the other
Dadaists (he plans to) I then asked him what i was mostly
curious about. He had emigrated from Hitler's Germany
when he was a child. Would he compare the rise of the radical
right wing now to the rise of Hitler's party in Germany?
I said I was particulary concerned because my wife
feels very worried about this. He said, no not at all. No comparison.
Still, he doesn't want to think of this, because he
doesn't want to emigrate again! Then he said, apparently
in response to what I had said about Toni,
"I don't read the newspapers." Someone standing nearby said,
"You don't read the newspapers and you are an historian?"
Then he mentioned briefly Bush's replacement for Ashcroft
and the fact that only 16% of New Yorkers voted for Bush.

When I left I thought: I really don't have to read
*Man in the High Castle* (of course I will)
because we are living it. Talking about
all this with Professor Gay,
I felt like I was in a movie about the Third Reich like
*The Blue Angel.*

Now I'm going to go read a few more pages
of my signed copy of Peter Gay's totally absorbing
*Freud for Historians* (Oxford, 1985), and maybe a
little more of Tony Tost's book too.
***
After reading Tony Tost's *The Invisible Bride*
some more I thought: All we ever had to do was
write about was our differences. Then
we would know each other better and
our similarities would speak for themselves.
..

Thoughout our history,
tyrants and fantatics have inspired
the fearful, boot-licking aspect
of the zetgeist. Its luminous, poetic side has been
temporarily eclipsed by the cratered
satellites of prejudice, self-serving
empowerment and domination

We live in an era of would be Pharoes,
pulling their shabby confidence tricks, their
hollow and hateful gambits
substituted for patiently
accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
Earlier phases of American history
such as FDR's New Deal are now
part of our shared experience.
These successes are tools that can't be
easily eliminated from our political
knowledge of how to address social needs.

It is hard to visualize what forces must emerge to
transition from a society controlled by fear and repression to
one based on social needs. There is
something in human nature
that will not put up, for long, with laws and leaders
whose authority is founded on
hypocrisy and mean spirited oppression.

Thursday, November 11

Things resist manipulation and usually
respond better to a frank and solid grasp.

notebook: 9/12/88
published in: *The Boundary of Blur*
*****************************************
"NATASHA: Well, nearly every day there are words which
disappear because they are no longer allowed. In their place, one
must put new words to correspond to the new ideas. And you
know. . . in the last few months...some. . . words have disappeared
that I liked very much.
INSERT: *Let Alpha 60 destroy itself*
LEMMY: Which words?. . . I'm interested...
NATASHA: Robin redbreast. . . to weep. . .
INSERT: *Save all those able to cry*
NATASHA: Autumn light. . .
INSERT: *Tenderness*
NATASHA: Tenderness, also..."

"2. Ambitious Paranoia.After a long period of persecution a change in the symptoms may set in, in some cases, and the intensity of the hallucinations may become modified. At the same time delusions of grandeur begin to appear, at first faintly, but gradually they increase in force until they ultimately supplant the delusions of persecution. At the same time the hallucinations of a disagreeable nature fade away and are replaced by auditory hallucinations conformable to the new delusions of grandeur. Undoubtedly, however, this form of paranoia may commence, so far as can be observed, with delusions of grandeur, in which case there is seldom or never a transformation of the personality or of the delusions from grandeur to persecution, although delusions of persecution may engraft themselves or run side by side with the predominant ambitious delusions.

The emotional basis of ambitious paranoia is pride, and every phase of human vanity and aspiration is represented in the delusions of the patients. There is moreover considerably less logical acumen displayed in the explanations of their beliefs by such patients than in the case of the subjects of persecution. Many of them affect to be the descendants of historical personages without any regard for accurate genealogical detail. They have no compunction in disowning their natural parents or explaining that they have been changed in their cradles in order to account for the fact that they are of exalted or even of royal birth. Dominated by such beliefs paranoiacs have been known to travel all over the world in search of confirmation of their delusions. It is people of this kind who drop into the ears of confiding strangers vague hints as to their exalted origin and kindred, and who make desperate and occasionally alarming attempts to force their way into the presence of princes and rulers. The sphere of religion affords an endless field for the ambitious paranoiacs and some of them may even aspire to divine authority, but as a rule the true paranoiac does not lose touch with earth. The more extravagant delusions of persons who call themselves by divine names and assume omnipotent attributes are usually found in patients who have passed through acute attacks of insanity auch as mania or dementia praecox and are mentally enfeebled.

A not uncommon form of paranoia combining both ambition and persecution is where the subject believes that he is a man of unbounded wealth or power, of the rights to which he is, however, deprived by the machinations of his enemies. These patients frequently obtain the knowledge on which they base their delusions through auditory hallucinations. They are often so troublesome, threatening and persistent in their determination to obtain redress for their imagined wrongs, that they have to be forcibly detained in asylums in the public interest.

On the whole, however, the ambitious paranoiac is not trouble-,

some, but calm, dignified, self-possessed, and reserved on the subject of his delusions. He is usually capable of reasoning as correctly and of performing work as efficiently as ordinary people. Many of them, however, while living in society are liable to give expression to their delusions under the influence of excitement, or to behave so strangely and unconventionally on unsuitable occasions as to render their seclusion either necessary or highly desirable."

Wednesday, November 10

Vital Wood s lot {click here}-
today celebrated the birthday of
Karl Shapiro, a poet l learned of browsing one day
in the Strand bookshop (couldn't resist a first edtion of a famous poet for
the paltry price of $3.) Shapiro, once a towering figure in American letters,
now a denizen of the bargain shelves. Maybe not such a bad fate for such a
provocative poet, who knows, considering poetry politics on the whole...

from *The Bourgeois Poet* (1964, Random House)

"The best book has a sad finality. The best book closes too
many rooms. the best poem clicks like a box: you have
made yourself a neat little trap, a hideaway with wall-
to wall rhyme. Praises of passers-by, equivalent of
riches. Double feeling of triumph and depression, like
one who has reached the mountain top. He notes with
surprise that he is going down. Better not to think about
it."....

"Your book about my books, which I'm the only reader of. O
book that's absolutely mine, that I didn't have a hand
in. Mirror of my Narcissus years, music box, what if I
stop now? List of notices that brought me nights of
delirium, ecstacy, fury, heartbreak, mirror broken and
magically joined together without a flaw. History of
me which only I can read. And you, my author, what
thanks or regrets shall I give? You took me alive, hands
tied behind, delivered me to the marshal of degrees.
There on the platform where all things fall through, I
went down in operatic flames. In velvet cape and
swirl of pen, I accepted.

Incapacity of sincerity reminds me of an oral question:
Moliere, etait-il sincere? (What in the name of God
is prose?)

Phone book of myself I will call you up."....

"Prove you are less destructive than the poet. Prove that
the great slow prose poem of the analysis does not lead
to the artifical paradise."...

"Posterity is a literary racket. Posterity is a switchboard
to past present, and future. Posterity is an intercom sys-
tem devised by the brain of super-educationalists in far-
away almost nonexistent places like offices. Posterity
lives in the vaults of the nearest insurance company.
Posterity is for the fabulously rich. The poor plant
potatoes in the bathtub and dandle their children and
listen to beery poetry on broken sofas."....

"Younger I dreamed of being a poet whose trash basket was
rifled by scholars. I learned to write trash-basket
poems. But this is closer to my real desire, I'm writing
the poem as much for you as a poem is possible, It
stands there like a half-filled glass, both coming and
going. I'm a bad host. The drinks are too strong; I
don't know how to carve (I say with a grin, I'm left-
handed). This is a poem to sneak at a glance. (I'm
writing it to mean, not be.)"...

"We pick some unsuspecting soul, usually a friend, on whom
to visit a lifetime of frustration. Usually a friend, at one fell
swoop. That's what friends are for."

Mentioned here before, this
is an excellent group of poems
printed handsomely on an illustrated deck of cards.
It remains on my computer desk,
a wonderful item to read and have.

Here's another poem, on the
4 of clubs:

"unable to articulate dread,/
one sees no cause,
assumes no end:"

Here's a review by Laura Carter
New Pages {click here}**********************************
Way Down South in the Land of Cotton

Hey, Blue State people!
Everybody down south
is not evil; far from it. Don't forget
*The Dixie Chicks*
who stood up courageously to their own
demographic to support
Kerry/Edwards and the Democrats
on tour with The Boss.
And they're a damn fine
band too.

President Bush responded to the controversy surrounding the Dixie Chicks in an interview with Tom Brokaw on April 24:

"I mean, the Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say. And just because—they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out. You know, freedom is a two-way street. But I have—don't really care what the Dixie Chicks said. I want to do what I think is right for the American people, and if some singers or Hollywood stars feel like speaking out, that's fine. That's the great thing about America. It stands in stark contrast to Iraq, by the way."

Tuesday, November 9

This just in!

From Mexico to Bombay, today
*fait accompli* goes international...

We have the great pleasure
to announce that our essay
*Bush's Cult-ural Capital and the
Politics of Paranoia*
has been translated into Spanish
by Heriberto Yepez
and is now available on
archivo hache {click here}

(the above announcement only- translated by
babel fish {click here})
*********************************
here is a letter received today
from Heriberto Yepez
a poet and psychotherapist
living and working
in Tijuana, Mexico
**

hi,

I translated one of your blog posts on my Spanish blog.{*Bush's Cul-tural Captial and the Politics of Paranoia*}

I think you are completely right. We are talking here of the need for a psychotherapeutical cultural poetics. I think I am going to write something on the subject, taking your blog as a reference, because I think this is one of the issues involved in our community: to address something which is obvious: emotional health, disturbances in it, are igniting imperialism and mass self-deception, and as intelllectual/language communities we need to address that...

cultural psychotherapy as part of critical theory. a difficult issue, but one that needs to be dealt with... the US is going 'mad', and Mexico is going the same way... more slowly but certainly we share this loony route...

Sunday, November 7

Bush's Cult-ural Capital and the Politics of Paranoia

Whether or not Bush was re-elected by
means of voting machine fraud and
forms of voter disenfranchisement,
those who are intensely upset with
the ongoing far right wing takeover
in the US feel that way in part because
it is clear the there are signs of
emotional disturbance both in the
President and in the philosophy and
beliefs, policies and behavior of his followers.

There is clearly a flavor of paranoia
to far-right thinking. Nixon, certainly
one of the architects of this movement,
was certainly paranoid; i.e., the constant
audio taping, suspicious thinking,
communist witch-hunting and Watergate.
Paranoia is based,in great part, on sexual repression.
Christian fundamentalist philosophy seems to
eagerly embrace fears of unrestrained
sexuality, while, ironically, their free
market philosophy derives its (short
term) high octane fuel from elements
of sexuality in advertising, and elements
of eroticism fostered by highly charged competitiveness,
which in turn produces fears of castration,
or group rejection or
retribution on another level. These fears
in turn fuel unconscious paranoia. Abortion
must be forbidden because sexuality-
and in particular, homosexuality,
must be strongly repressed by
being consciously and overly firmly connected
with child rearing, parenting and the family. The
supercharged eroticism connected to
increased competitiveness is
split off , denied, and sublimated
into militaristically uniform
participation in the brutal competitiveness
of corporate power mongering and war.

Cult formation is closely tied in
with paranoiac thinking, and
is connected with group
competitiveness, in turn easily
tied in with individual competitiveness
and longings for success, or longing
for feelings and fears of failure to be assuaged
by assurances of coming success. It
is likely that most intensified
fantasies of unlimited success are
connected to grandiosity and conscious
and unconscious desires to ward off
fears of impotence and group
rejection.. Paranoids
long for leaders who derive unlimited
confidence from fantasies of unlimited
power that can be derived from some
even greater power- such as divine power.

Bush believes he and his followers derive power
from God directly. The attacks of 911 gave the
far right an opportunity to expand the
illness of paranoia to ever greater sectors
of the population. Once tied in to the
fantasized future successes of capitalism,
in turn to individual longings for
success, wealth and power, the far
right succeeded in inflicting the self-
propelling illness of paranoia on ever
greater numbers of people. The
question that must be asked now is: how
can cultural mental illness be treated? How
can an entire sector of the population
be freed from a cult infected with paranoia?
The time tested techniques of civil disobedience
and non-violent resistance offer modes of
action that activists may turn to with some degree of
predictability of success within limited areas of applicability.
People with extensive experience with such techniques
recommend strategic thinking and extensive planning in their use:
certainly they are not to be employed impulsively or under the
sway of emotional response to immediate events.
But can current models of "competing" in the
open market of ideas and beliefs
be effective under such circumstances,
public education and the like? The
far right wing has made clear its
rejection of rationality, science,
intellectuality and rational debate.
This has caused further chaos
and confusion among the
mentally healthy portion
of the society. If lecturing,
exhorting, explaining, won't
work, what will? How should
a large, maybe a majority
of the society be related with
by a smaller part, which is
in better health psychologically?
This seems to me to
be one the most important, yet complex
and frustrating tasks facing the remaining
members of society who
still have (of course, in varying degrees,
at various times)
some ability and willingness
to think for themselves.